The DAF Ask That Led Donors to Double Their Gifts
When supporters were persuaded to give using their donor-advised fund, many gave twice as much. Some donors who’d given only $100 before increased their gifts to $5,000.
By Rasheeda Childress
Senior Editor, Fundraising
July 9, 2025 | Read Time: 3 minutes
The Public Theater in New York had gotten gifts from donor-advised funds before, but it hadn’t prioritized appealing for DAF gifts, says Shayla Titley, director of patron programs and services
“There have always been people who have been giving contributions through donor-advised funds, but that was just really of their own volition,” Titley told the Chronicle. “We weren’t actively talking about it in any of our communications. We decided to put more intention behind our donor-advised funds promotion and marketing.”
Fundraisers decided to make a tweak to a planned direct-mail campaign that asked donors to make a $5,000 gift, and as a thank you, the organization would place a plaque with their name on a seat in the theater. The tweak to the mailing: It let donors know that in addition to donating by check or credit card, they could donate via their DAF.
The campaign brought in 91 gifts, 23 of which came from DAFs.
“For a quarter of the gifts that came in to be from donor-advised funds — that was significant,” Titley says. “And then 11 of those 23 were people who had never given higher than three figures. Some had only given $100. But because they used their DAF, they were able to jump up and say, ‘Yes, I can give you $5,000.’”
The Public Theater is one of 32 nonprofits whose giving was analyzed in the “DAF Fundraising Report 2025,” produced by the DAF payment tool company Chariot and the fundraising consulting firm K2D Strategies. While the number of participants in the study was small, the organizations were dedicated to improving their interaction with DAF donors and generated a significant amount of data that’s applicable to other nonprofits, says Mitch Stein, Chariot’s head of strategy.
“The volume of DAF giving in this group was phenomenal — over $1 billion of DAF donations,” Stein says. “That’s over 400,000 DAF gifts we were able to analyze.”
For example, 30,349 were repeat donors who switched from giving by check or credit card to a DAF. Like at the Public Theater, the majority of donors who switched gave more when using their DAF.
“The median change in someone’s giving once they started using a DAF was 100 percent, meaning half of your converted DAF donors are doubling their support to your organization,” Stein says.
The report includes case studies and examples from many of the organizations that participated in the research. For example, the form the Public Theater used — where it offered donor-advised funds and qualified charitable deductions as separate itemized choices on mailed appeals — is included.
Other findings from the research:
- In 2024, the median size of non-DAF gifts for the organizations in the study was $25, compared with $300 for DAF gifts.
- 85 percent of people who switched to DAF giving either increased or maintained their giving to that same organization.
- 20 percent of DAF donors gave two or more gifts a year.
- DAF gifts ranged in size, so they weren’t all from major donors. Seven in 10 gifts in the analysis were less than $1,000.
- DAF donor retention was on average 13 percentage points higher than for non-DAF donors.
- The median revenue growth coming from DAFs in 2024 was 30 percent among participating nonprofits, while median revenue from non-DAF sources decreased 1 percent.
